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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148886">ivy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiciLupin/pseuds/NiciLupin'>NiciLupin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mentalist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A lot of introspection, F/M, inspired by a taylor swift song - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:20:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiciLupin/pseuds/NiciLupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick Jane was different and soon he was immersed in every part of her life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ivy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Jisbonlover/gifts">Alex_Jisbonlover</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, when I heard ivy for the first time, I immediately thought it was a Lisbon song! Go listen to ivy by Taylor Swift, if you haven't yet. It's great!<br/>And my little sister (Alex_Jisbonlover) is amazing at making edits, so we did this thing: She made an edit to the song and I wrote this piece of fanfiction. </p>
<p>Here's the link to her edit, go look at it before reading this thing: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CIvC7J6qDHD/?igshid=1vne5isyv4imf</p>
<p>Anyway, this is basically Jane and Lisbon from beginning to end. I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In San Francisco Teresa Lisbon had gone to church every Sunday. Especially in the beginning. Right out of training, everything had been new and exciting and she’d been eager to change the world. She’d told her Mom about it, when she’d lit a candle for her and prayed to God he’d look after her brothers.</p>
<p>A few years at the San Francisco Police Department made her realize that changing the world was a whole chunk more work than she’d ever imagined. And she’d thought she’d been delusioned when her dad started drinking.</p>
<p>She hadn’t given up yet. She switched to the CBI on Bosco’s recommendation and soon they assigned her charge of her own team. She’d been told she was fast to climb up the ladder. And Minelli had warned her that not everyone liked to see a young woman like her succeeding at such a job - but that had been unnecessary. She already knew. And she was reminded of it every day. That’s why she worked twice as hard. She didn’t complain. She didn’t take shit. She worked overtime and she solved cases. </p>
<p>She stopped going to church about the same time that Hannigan was transferred to her team. </p>
<p>She liked Cho and Rigsby well enough. They were good people and good cops. Hannigan, though, was something else. She pitied and despised him at the same time. And she let none of it show. Because she was doing the work. Men like Bosco could afford to complain about one of their men but she couldn’t. And she wouldn’t. But she couldn’t lie to herself that well - the whole situation was making her seriously doubt there was anything to change, really.</p>
<p>At the time she was working, working, working. She didn’t miss a social life, never had, really, but she couldn’t help that her flat felt lonely at times even if she just spent five hours there, sleeping. She’d wanted change but it felt more like she was doing the same things over and over again hoping for a different result. It felt like her life was hollow. Not that she was not happy with her life... she’d just hope for something. Something more, something different.</p>
<p>And different came in form of the dishevelled, pitiful mess that was Patrick Jane. He was definitely not what she’d expected from the job but for the first time that was something positive. Minelli kept him around because he had a gift and Jane stuck around because they had the Red John files.</p>
<p>Lisbon, though, she liked having him around because he meant change. Hannigan left and Cho and Rigsby seemed to like Jane a lot better anyway - they grew as a team. Jane kept her on her toes with his unconventional ways of solving cases and his ability to see right through people - she liked the challenge even though she’d never admit it. And she saw change in him. He had a good heart, she knew that from the moment she’d picked him up off the floor in front of the elevator. He didn’t believe it but that was okay. She hoped she could make him see it one day. And the longer he was with the team the more confident he grew, the more he talked, the more he made bureaucratic problems. He started to joke around with her and the team. He sometimes ventured into light-hearted flirting even. No real danger but it brightened her day. He talked to her. He kept her company in late office hours. He became the person she spent the most of her time with and she found her life didn’t feel as hollow anymore. </p>
<p>She didn’t know when exactly his smile became the most precious thing in her life. Probably sometime around the first false lead they’d caught on Red John since Jane had joined the team. It faltered then, his smile. Revealing all the broken parts he kept carefully together. He looked fragile again, closer to death than to real life. For a moment she doubted if it was the right thing to do, to allow him to be so absorbed in his scheme. But then again, where would he go? What else would he do? The team kept him as close to sane as Jane got. And if she was completely honest with herself, she’d miss him terribly.</p>
<p>Jane needed a few weeks to get himself together again completely. She spent that time praying for him, making him tea and covering him when he fell asleep on the couch. She felt a heaviness in her chest that she couldn’t quite place until he smiled at her again - a real, radiant smile. A little tarnished but still bright. Suddenly, the heaviness was replaced with a warm flutter in her chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was after Bosco’s death, the first time she dreamed of Jane. (The irony, Bosco would have hated it.) Not in any inappropriate way, not what one could think. Maybe a little inappropriate given they were colleagues but she blamed it on her loneliness.</p>
<p>There was so much pain inside her that she couldn’t tell anyone about. So much anger and despair. Emotions she knew Jane was familiar with. And she had to admit that he was, indeed, the closest thing to a best friend she had. He was the closest thing, period. </p>
<p>So, when she lay in bed at night, she imagined him there, just holding her. She imagined him telling her he understood and that they were a team and he was there.  He’d catch her when she fell. She imagined his lips on her forehead and his heartbeat under her ear. She imagined his hands stroking her hair.</p>
<p>The anger and despair subsided slowly but Jane remained an integral part of the dreamland she wandered to before sleep and sometimes in the quiet hours of work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The whole debacle that was Timothy Carter made her ache with all kinds of new pain. Her shoulder was the most obvious one. Then worry about Jane. Relief and fear he’d go to prison for life. Relief again, when he didn’t and fear and despair when he told her Timothy Carter was, indeed, not Red John.</p>
<p>Secretly she’d imagined a life where he was free. His curse lifted. Now she cursed herself for letting herself hope, if only for a second. She cursed the house she could see in flashes. The kisses he would pepper not only on her forehead. The thought of baby names.</p>
<p>She could see in his eyes that he was serious but she refused to acknowledge it. Not now. She also forbade herself wandering into the dreamland that, by now, was covered only in him. She worked late at the office, she went running before and after sleep. And yet, she spent more and more of her time in Jane’s presence. Their relationship seemed to shift closer and closer and closer. There were more lunchtimes together, more time spent after work. He lounged on the couch in her office more often, brought her little presents.</p>
<p>When Red John killed James Panzer she couldn’t ignore it anymore. She knew it was not only Panzer’s taunting. Red John had <em>helped </em>them. Helped <em>Jane</em>. He’d done him a favour and Jane had asked for it. She didn’t know if the team knew but she certainly did. In a way that was worse. She hadn’t been so terrified in a long time.</p>
<p>All these years, for all the mind games Red John liked to play with them, at least the lines had been clear. Murder, revenge. Enemies. Now, they had switched it up. The rules had changed. She couldn’t ignore it anymore (and not only because Darcy started prodding them).</p>
<p>She asked herself often why Jane had let it come to that but she never dared ask him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even before they reached the car, it began to rain. Not just raining but literally pouring. The sky was a dark shade of gray and threatening. Bright lightning flashed through the air and loud thunder rumbled in the distance.</p>
<p>Lisbon shuddered at the very idea of getting out even if she only had to walk the short distance from the parking lot to the office. The weather in Sacramento was rarely this bad and Lisbon was very grateful for it.</p>
<p>You'd think she'd be a little more impervious to weather and cold, having grown up in Chicago, but she wasn't particularly fond of such downpours. Most of the time, anyway.</p>
<p>Quite the opposite of Jane.</p>
<p>"Can you stop right over there?" he asked, giving her an endearing look.</p>
<p>Lisbon frowned. "Why?"</p>
<p>"I want to feel the rain." He unbuckled his seat belt, took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.</p>
<p>"We're in the middle of a thunderstorm and you want to stop and feel the rain?" She gave him a quick sideways glance.</p>
<p>"Yes, please."</p>
<p>She shook her head. "We don't have time for things like that, Jane."</p>
<p>"Oh, come on, Lisbon. Just five minutes and I promise you I'll be fully focused on the case. Besides, you were going to buy me some food but I'd pass on that."</p>
<p>She thought about it for a moment. They really didn't have time for this and anyway, what was he always thinking up in that crazy head of his? But if she said no now, he would bug her about it all the rest of the day and she didn't want that either. She hated that she could never say no to him</p>
<p>So she sighed in frustration and pulled into a small empty parking lot next to a wide field of green acres.</p>
<p>"Five minutes," she said and he grinned at her. He opened the door, excited as a little boy and jumped out of the car.</p>
<p>She saw through the windshield how he spread his arms, looked up at the sky and opened his mouth. She shook her head at him but couldn’t keep the smile from spreading on her face.</p>
<p>This man was crazy. And so beautiful in that.</p>
<p>He spun around once, looked at her, grinned at her and waved. She raised a hand and returned the gesture. He was going to catch a cold, for sure.</p>
<p>A brief sound distracted her and she glanced at her phone to find that Grace had texted her. She had identified their victim. Mary-Ann Butcher, 21. Her parents had reported her missing a few days ago.</p>
<p>She winced as her door was yanked open, Jane grabbed her arm and pulled her outside into the rain.</p>
<p>"Jane!" she cried, but in her surprise couldn't shake him off fast enough so she felt the rain on her face and hands and the cold wind fluttering her coat.</p>
<p>She quickly closed her coat and swatted his arm. "You're an idiot!"</p>
<p>He laughed at that, put his hands on her arms and spun in a circle with her. She could feel the rain soaking through her coat, drenching her blouse and ruffling her hair.</p>
<p>"Isn't this nice, Lisbon?" he asked as he stopped again. Probably subconsciously, his hands slid from her upper arms to her hands and she noticed how his cold fingers closed around hers.</p>
<p>"No. It's wet and freezing and we're going to catch a cold," she countered, but he was still laughing.</p>
<p>"Don't you feel alive?"</p>
<p>"Jane, it's rain. Can we please get back in the car and go to the office now?"</p>
<p>He smiled, pulled her a little closer and blew a kiss on her cheek. She memorised that kiss. It was impossible to forget. The sensation of his lips on her skin, his cold hands grasping hers. He smelled like rain and sunshine at the same time and she didn’t want him to let go. Ever.</p>
<p>"What was that for?" she asked, looking at him sceptically.</p>
<p>"Nothing. Just like that. Because I feel alive."</p>
<p>She shook her head slowly. "You're crazy, I hope you know that. Now come on." She broke away from him and got back in the car.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That was a week before he buried a man. Before he ran off to Vegas without a word. She called him but he never answered. He’d pushed her away again. It hurt like little else. For he was so obviously gone that every bit of her life that was so covered in him ached with hollowness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At the end of the day, he took her hand. His touch was tender, fragile. It felt like they were back on the day they met. He clung to her in spirit. And she clung to him. She wanted to be angry at him, not only for the past six months but also for the rushed confession he’d made. She wanted to show him that was no way to behave but all she could do was hold his hand and be glad that he was with her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She was angry over Lorelei. She was furious and jealous and she hated herself for it. She’d told Jane she wasn’t his girlfriend but an officer of the law but if she was honest with herself, when it came to Lorelei she felt a little bit of both.</p>
<p>It was not good. It was becoming too much. The thoughts of him seemed to be like ivy. Deeply rooted in her dreamland. Impossible to get rid of. Covering every thought, every corner, clinging to her mind even when she tried to distract herself.</p>
<p>And she found that if he tore away at it, (Every time she felt betrayed, every time she felt he treated <em>Lorelei </em>more like his partner than her, every time he lied to her, every time he shut her out), it hurt in the worst way. If that dream of him had started out as comfort, it became torture as soon as it seeped into reality.</p>
<p>She found the loneliness creeping back to her because he was <em>not </em>there and the image of him was not enough.</p>
<p>And if he was cursed, she had cursed herself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They’d slowly found their footing again, after Lorelei’s death. She spent less nights crying and worrying and more nights dreaming of a time when Red John was no more. Jane was getting closer and he was letting her in again.</p>
<p>She spent nights in his attic with him sometimes. He spent nights on the couch in her office sometimes. When they met Sean Barlow, she was a little worried that Jane could see what Barlow saw. She was worried that everyone could see what Barlow and Lorelei (and Jane, she reminded herself, and Haffner implicitly and LaRoche) had voiced.</p>
<p>But Jane didn’t react, so she knew that he knew but they weren’t addressing it. She was disappointed and relieved at the same time.</p>
<p>When they were down to seven names and Jane was as tense as ever and they fought in the middle of the desert and he ran after her car and called her phone in the middle of the night to apologize, it felt awfully like a love affair.</p>
<p>When Red John drew on her face and Jane stayed at her bedside in the hospital the whole night, she understood. As his fingers stroked her hair just like she’d imagined more often than she could count, she realized that he was not addressing it because he was scared. He was scared that Red John, who could pull seven names and a childhood memory from Jane’s head, could find out about – well, about whatever it was that felt this much like home between them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At Grace and Rigsby’s wedding, they met up with them in a small winery, after their chariot ride. They had dinner there together (on Jane) and a glass or two or three of local wine. Despite his encounter with McAllister, Jane seemed less tense than the past weeks. Maybe it was the beautiful sunset in Napa or his friends’ obvious happiness or simply the wine that was clouding over his focus on his hunt for Red John. She was the same, so she didn’t complain.</p>
<p>As much as she wanted to catch Red John, there was also dread settling in her stomach thinking about it. In almost every possible scenario in her head, catching Red John also meant losing Jane one way or another. It was like their time was running out, slipping through her fingers like sand. She must’ve been as tense as Jane by now, simply because she was waiting for the sword of Damocles to fall. She was living for the small moments now. For when he asked her if she wanted to get Ice Cream for lunch with him. For when he offered a game of Poker at the end of a long day. For when they sat on a long drive together bickering about Jazz artists.</p>
<p>Or for now, when he smiled at her from his place next to her on the table. She smiled back at him and he carefully squeezed her hand on the table. She might have minded if Grace and Rigsby were not dancing already and Cho playing Darts with a group of young tourists.</p>
<p>Jane leaned in and for a moment she expected him to kiss her cheek. “Want to dance?”, he asked. He was still holding onto her hand.</p>
<p>She turned her head and suddenly they were so close that she couldn’t speak. He was rarely looking at her this openly. She wanted to brush his cheek, kiss his lips but instead she nodded. “Sure”, she said and his face lit up.</p>
<p>There were a few other couples on the floor. <em>A few couples</em>. She and Jane weren’t one, of course.</p>
<p>Jane turned to her and put his arm around her waist. She leaned her head on his shoulder and breathed in his familiar scent. She didn’t know when Jane’s scent had become familiar to her but she was sure she’d recognize the mixture of faint aftershave and tea and the leather of his couch and something that smelled like her dream, anywhere.</p>
<p>He led her slowly at first, swaying to the music. She enjoyed the smoothness of his shirt under her fingers and her cheek and the circles his thumb was brushing against her lower back.</p>
<p>Words lay on the tip of her tongue and she looked up in a sudden urge to speak them. When she met his eyes, he smiled at her softly, knowing. If she said something now, he’d hear it, she could see it in his eyes. He was emotional, if because of exhaustion or the happiness of their friends – his guard was lowered. Maybe he’d see where the evening would lead them.</p>
<p>And it was enough to know he <em>would</em>. She didn’t need to say anything. There was nothing she could say now that they both didn’t already know. And he was here and he was holding her and maybe at the end of the night he would kiss her cheek and that was fine. The end of his curse was near and hopefully, afterwards, they could see where it would lead them. She could wait.</p>
<p>When the song switched to something faster, he grinned at her and twirled her around. Laughter escaped her as his arms caught her again and led her in a jive that was a little off and danced a little too closely.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She’d known it was Jane’s fight. For all her claims that Red John was her case, she knew that ultimately, she would try to save Jane more than anything else. What happened to Red John or the Blake Association was secondary. (When had he become more important than her job? Nevermind that she didn’t have a job anymore.)</p>
<p>She also knew, he wouldn’t let her help. He wanted to protect her as much as she wanted to protect him. She gave him her gun because she trusted him. And if that was the help, he would accept from her, she’d give it to him.</p>
<p>Somehow, she knew but it surprised her anyway that it should be the last time she saw him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She listened to his voice message a hundred times. His absence affected every bit of her life. It spread in all the places he’d covered before.</p>
<p>She almost went to work the next day but the CBI did not exist any longer.</p>
<p>She went for a run instead. She went grocery shopping. She called her brothers. Day after day for almost a week. She fell asleep to Jane’s voice. She wanted to fix his teacup, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.</p>
<p>Then, one morning, her room was beautifully lit by the sunshine’s rays gleaming through her curtains, yet she couldn’t bring herself to get up. She lay there for an hour or two or three barely breathing. Her mind was blank, her body numb. She grabbed her phone at some point and replayed his message.</p>
<p>It was the first time everything sunk in. There was a heavy wave crushing her and the tears started streaming down her face. She hugged her pillow to her chest und cried into it. She buried her face against it when she was screaming, trying to get rid of the all-encompassing ache that resided inside her.</p>
<p>It hit her that she didn’t know how to live without Jane in her life anymore.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She did, of course, live. She allowed herself a short period of time to get her life back in order. She took a job and moved away. Abbott quickly found that neither she nor the team had anything to do with the Blake Association – quite the opposite, in fact.</p>
<p>She lied straight to Abbott’s face when it came to Red John and Jane but what did it matter really? Except to her and the irrational goddamned hope to maybe someday see him again.</p>
<p>A few weeks into her work in Washington she dreamed of Jane again. She had a lot of time at work to think about how much he’d like the forest and that, probably, he’d like a fireplace at home and how he’d teach a kid swimming.</p>
<p>She received the first letter just as she was starting to force herself to let go of that dream. Maybe date another man. Try to get on with her life – really get on. But the letter lit up her world again. His familiar handwriting, the fact that he was okay and that he was thinking of her and made an effort to get a letter to her at the end of the fucking world. It was enough to light up everything in her and expel any plans of kicking him out of her dreams.</p>
<p>Sometimes she thought about what it was that made him so special that he had started such a bright, life-altering feeling in her that it lit through any darkness that surrounded her. She did not know.</p>
<p>No, that was wrong. She knew, but she had no words for it. Nothing that would be enough.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That stunt on the airplane was too much. Really, sometimes she wondered how the cleverest man she knew could be so stupid at times.</p>
<p>She’d waited and waited and waited for him to say something, <em>anything</em>. And when he didn’t, she’d thought that, maybe, she’d been wrong. And Marcus was a good man. She would’ve never been unhappy with him, especially once she could get rid of this silly dream of hers.</p>
<p>She should’ve known that was not how it worked with Jane.</p>
<p>She’d really thought about going to DC. She’d sat through the whole flight replaying that embarrassing scene in her head. Thinking about the car he’d rented about the con he’d pulled. About adjoining rooms and the tears in his eyes.</p>
<p>She’d told him it was too late. She’d said yes to Marcus already but when she got off the plane in DC, she couldn’t breathe. She could not imagine waking up knowing she wouldn’t see him.</p>
<p>Was she crazy? Most probably. She bought a ticket back to Florida and texted Marcus there was a problem. Then she turned off her phone. It wasn’t nice but she could only deal with one man at a time.</p>
<p>When Jane kissed her for the first time it felt like home. She was overcome with a kind of contentment and happiness she’d never known before. She grinned at him over the table in the interrogation room and for the first time, since her mother’s death, she felt like she’d come home.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Abbott was embarrassingly calm about the whole affair. He promised he’d take care of the paperwork, so that she would get her job in Austin back and informed Jane that he would have to pay for the rooms in the Blue Bird Lodge himself. And for any expenses that forced them to stay another two days at the Islamorada. Jane waved it off easily and Abbott chuckled, handing them the key to the room Lisbon had left hours before.</p>
<p>She slept in his arms for the first time that day. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair and she listened to his heart beating just like she’d dreamed. She slept a long eleven hours that day. Exhausted from the lack of sleep and the emotional turmoil.</p>
<p>When she woke up, he was watching her. She smiled at him and kissed him just because she could now. She studied his face and she saw the deep dark circles under his eyes and felt the tense muscles in his shoulders.</p>
<p>“Did you not sleep.”</p>
<p>He smiled but it was shaky. “I prefer watching you sleep”, he said good naturedly, but his voice wavered. “I can’t believe you’re here.”</p>
<p>“Jane, I am here. And you need some sleep.”</p>
<p>He closed his eyes at that, his breathing ragged. She let her fingers run through his hair and kissed his forehead. “I know you’re hyped up. It’s a lot to process, huh?”</p>
<p>He nodded and when he opened his eyes they shone with tears. She knew that feeling. She knew he was scared this was all a dream. That’d he’d wake up and she was gone. That they wouldn’t work out, that he’d lose her. He’d made himself vulnerable. He had put in a lot of emotional labour. And he was in injured and he hadn’t slept for more than 24 hours.</p>
<p>“Sleep now. I will be right here, when you wake up, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”</p>
<p>He nodded slowly. She sat up and leaned against the headrest of the bed. Sunlight was still glowing behind the curtains. Jane curled against her. His arms snuck around her hip and he laid his head in her lap. Slowly she weaved her fingers through his curls until his breathing grew even and then some more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Loving Jane was easy. She’d loved him for so long now that she didn’t even remember what it was like not loving him. (That was how she knew she did not love Marcus, in fact, but she didn’t like to think about that.)</p>
<p>Navigating a relationship with him was not always as easy. But it was worth it. Every single argument, every single tear and worry and anger, she’d do it all over again if she just ended up with him. Maybe that was the fight of her life.</p>
<p>In a faint distance she could see that her life could have been entirely different if she’d never met him. But she didn’t want different. She wanted exactly this life. With everything he’d brought to it.</p>
<p>She was ready for anything.</p>
<p>For now, though, she was the happiest woman in the world when he leaned down to kiss her forehead. She must’ve fallen asleep on the couch. That happened a lot lately.</p>
<p>“Hello sleepyhead”, he whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.</p>
<p>“Hey”, she mumbled. She ran a hand over her eyes and blinked up at him.</p>
<p>“Long day, huh?”</p>
<p>She smiled at him. “Every day seems to be very long at the moment.” She gently rubbed the small bump on her belly.</p>
<p>“Good thing I’m here to wake you up for dinner.” He put one hand next to hers on her stomach and her baby stirred in response. Jane couldn’t feel it yet, but she could feel their baby react enthusiastically to her daddy’s voice and touch.</p>
<p>“Well, at least your daughter is happy about it”, she said, and his face lit up with a radiant happiness she should have gotten used to the past weeks but still marvelled at each day.</p>
<p>“You mean our son.”</p>
<p>Neither of them was really invested in finding out the sex of their child. Their baby was a whole miracle to her, more happiness than she’d ever dared to hope for, and she honestly could not care less whether they were having a girl or a boy or anything in between. She had a hunch, call it mother’s instinct or whatever, and whenever she thought about the tiny human being growing inside her, she saw a little girl with Patrick’s smile and curls, while he insisted they were having a son. (Sometimes, she suspected he only argued for the sake of their banter, since she knew that he could not be bothered either as long as they were okay.)</p>
<p>It was a miracle to her that her dreams should become true. That she was married to Patrick Jane, that they were building a house and starting a family – that she had a reason to be thinking of baby names now. And she knew he felt the same way. He had suffered so much, never believed he could truly be happy again and now he was beaming with joy.</p>
<p>(It was the first time in all the years that they knew each other that she was better at keeping a secret than he was. From the moment she’d told him about their baby, he’d been dying to tell everyone, but she’d asked him to wait. An almost impossible task for him, as it turned out, even though he did really try.)</p>
<p>She cupped his face and kissed him sweetly. “You’ll see, my dear.”</p>
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